Preparing beverages by decocting (raw) ingredients in a solvent is often used for preparing various drinks or traditional Chinese medicine beverages. For example, traditional Chinese medicine is prepared by decocting herbs/plants used as ingredients in hot/boiling water used as solvent, until solids/compounds (i.e. active nutrients) contained in the ingredients are extracted/diffused in the solvent. After a given period of time, ingredients are taken out of the solvent, and the resulting beverage is ready to drink. Traditionally, this process comprises the following steps:                Preparing the ingredients: pre-sizing (e.g. slicing and grinding), cleaning the ingredients. The ingredients could also be in powder form.        Soaking: putting the ingredients into cold water for a certain time. The purpose of this step is to allow water to enter into the cell structure of ingredients so as to later facilitate compound extraction in the solvent.        Decocting: putting ingredients in a recipient with boiling water so that compounds are extracted, from the ingredients, into the water.        Filtering: separating the ingredients from the solvent, so that users can consume a clean drink without residues.        
However, such a process is not convenient for a user because it requires a lot of time-consuming successive steps, and also because the extraction can take up to a few hours, i.e. it takes a very long time before the beverage is ready. To speed-up the process, a user may be tempted to shorten the decocting time, but in that case nutrients might not all be extracted from the ingredients, resulting in a beverage which is not optimal from the point of view of solids/compounds contained in it, thereby affecting the taste or efficiency on the user's health.